Peter Boghossian is still at it. He’s in the meta phase – anyone who disliked his snide pseudo-questions about Y gay pride is a rigid ideologue so neener neener.
Like this one:
Questioning that one can be proud to be gay is a leftist blasphemy. #justbornthatway
Like this share:
I particularly hate this one, where he comes right out and says he’s doing it to taunt and upset:
I’m looking for an entirely new group of ideologues to enrage. What word should I disambiguate next?
A few hours before that he was pretending it was about critical thinking and being able to revise one’s views:
The more disturbed one is by a word’s disambiguation, the more likely it is that one’s position is not subject to revision.
There’s more where that came from; his Facebook posts are all public.
I wouldn’t care, except that a number of atheist or secularist bigwigs have touted him as another Highly Valuable atheist bigwig. Nuh uh. Atheism doesn’t need any more people who pride themselves (pride themselves, geddit?) on being assholes about LGBT people or women or people of color or anyone who has the bad taste to be marginalized in any way. Atheism needs fewer people like that, not more.
Greta has an excellent response to him.
You know, I really thought that in the atheist community, we were past this. I really thought that in the atheist community — despite some of the horrible racism, sexism, misogyny, anti-feminism, and ferocious opposition to social justice we’ve been seeing — we were overwhelmingly pro-LGBT. I really thought that, with the exception of a handful of nincompoops who we overwhelmingly disavowed, we understood the deep religious roots of homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia, and that we understood that fighting this bigotry was part and parcel of our fight against religious oppression. I really thought that no widely-read, widely-respected atheist author would be making ignorant jabs at LGBT people and LGBT culture, and posting snide, hostile, hurtful, “just asking questions” questions about us in public without actually bothering to ask any of us beforehand.
I know. This is what I was saying the other day. I keep being surprised that we’re not past this.
So Greta spells it out for him.
LGBT pride does not mean being proud of having been born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans.
It means being proud of having survived.
It means being proud of living in a homophobic, biphobic, transphobic society — a society that commonly treats us with contempt at best and violent hatred at worst — and still getting on with our lives. It means being proud of flourishing, in a society that commonly thinks we’re broken. It means being proud of being happy, in a society that commonly thinks we should be miserable. It means being proud of being good and compassionate, in a society that commonly thinks we’re wicked. It means being proud of fighting for our rights and the rights of others like us, in a society that commonly thinks we should lie down and let ourselves get walked on — or that thinks we should be grateful for crumbs and not ask for more. It means being proud of retaining our dignity, in a society that commonly treats us as laughing-stocks. It means being proud of loving our sexuality and our bodies, in a society that commonly thinks our sexuality and our bodies are disgusting. It means being proud of staying alive, in a society that commonly beats us down and wants us dead.
Is that really so god damn opaque that Peter Boghossian couldn’t possibly have figured it out, or understood if he’d really asked people to explain it to him? Really asked, not pretend-asked for the sake of sneering.
Simon Frankel Pratt gave a similar explanation on my FB wall on Thursday (and gave me permission to quote him when I asked):
I am not some sort of queer theorist extraordinaire here, but my understanding of pride, and my experience of it as a gay man who has marched in the odd parade and the like, is that it is about celebrating ‘being’ gay (in the broadest sense; this shouldn’t exclude lesbian, bisexual, or other queer persons). In the performative sense. Gay as something you do, rather than as a trait of an entity. There are performances, symbols, and subcultures associated with being gay, and they have emerged in the face of structural oppression and through personal and communal processes of growth and self-acceptance.
All that stuff people do at Pride reads like a veritable list of accomplishments, many of which are by previous generations whose strength, often quiet but thankfully often quite noisy, has made it possible for people like me to basically live without facing any significant discrimination.
I do hope Boghossian’s ravenous intellectual curiosity will be satisfied on this point before too many more outbursts.
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[…] and thanks to Ophelia Benson, I now know that Peter Boghossian is considered vewwy important in the atheist community. Gee, we […]
Hehe. “nincompoops”
Boghossian has been studying the tweets of Richard Dawkins: “I am totally rational and anyone who disagrees with me is an emotional doo-doo-head.”
Al Dente @2:
Memorizing and mindlessly emulating Dawkins’s tweets is not studying them. Actually studying Dawkins’s tweets and taking the time to understand them in their context would lead one to the conclusion that Dawkins is an emotional doo-doo head best not emulated.
Dawkins is kind of like the bible. People who memorize and parrot the bible are religious fundamentalists; people who actually study the bible don’t believe it’s anything more than a mostly crappy set of books.
This is why we need more atheists. We need enough so that we can filter out those who have a specialised rationality and replace them with consistent skeptics.
I mean, seriously, how little work does it take to figure out what gay pride is about? Is there any excuse for that kind of intellectual sloppiness outside of ideology?
Greta is made of awesome. Peter…not so much.
Does he realize at all that he’s part of the losing side? At all?
Doesn’t he want to at least bandwagon? To pretend that he was for social justice all along? Is he that clueless?
I guess so.
Well…no matter to me. I wasn’t going to buy whatever he was peddling regardless.
Perhaps he can next “disambiguate” the phrase “skeptical and atheist leaders”…
I shudder to think of the sort of things Boghossian thinks one should be proud of; I suspect it would turn out to be a whole lot of what we tend to file under ‘unexamined privilege’.
Fortunately, I never knew of him before I learned he was an ass.
@7…same here. So much simpler to ignore someone who you never thought much of in the first place.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa … … …
The man noticed there is no god and as so many before him, he seems to think this is the discovery of the century. Why expect him to actually put in an effort? Hell! It might make him uncomfortable, and we wouldn’t want that, would we now?
Has Boghossian heard about gaming journalism?
I’m looking for an entirely new group of ideologues to enrage.
Is that called “trolling”?
I remember a time when “gay pride” meant being able to tell your co-workers you were gay and keep your job. I’m not gay but I’m proud as fuck that society has put that shit behind us.
[meta + OT]
Disambiguate?
“Gay” used to mean something different, until it got trodden upon the euphemism treadmill.
(Current usage still irks me; also: “gay and lesbian”!)
John Morales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay
so it goes
I’d still like to know what he did to acquire that “kicked out of the UNM graduate program” badge he’s so proud of. I can’t help wondering if it was shit like this.
Seriously? A philosopher wants to disambiguate a word?
That makes sense in a specific setting, in a debate, a scholarly work etc, but no philosopher aware of the philosophy of language should be surprised that words are ambiguous.
That’s not a failing of word users, but a feature of language.
Now as have been shown, gay pride is indeed use to mean being happy or content with something you did or are doing.
But even if it was just used as a counterpoint to people trying to shame you, it would just be a different usage of the word pride.
As in “Aren’t you ashamed that your daughter is gay? No I’m proud!”
The parent is proud, not of her own work but of simply being the parent of another, and as a counterpoint to being ashamed.
It would be nice if words just had one meaning, but if you live in the real world, that is a naive thought, not worthy of someone calling themselves a philosopher.
‘Proud’ is often used colloquially as a synonym for ‘unapologetic’.
Oh wow, I’ve been so caught up in Gamergate lately, I completely missed this. After reading this post, and all the comments I looked back to see his exact words, and wow. The first sentence was what I expected, but I hadn’t expected that second one… “How can one be proud of something one didn’t work for?” Considering all the effort society puts into trying to make us ashamed of being gay, it’s a lot of work feel pride in it. So screw you Peter. I had this conversation with somebody not too long ago. I generally explain that it’s a refusal to feel the shame that society throws at us, or the push to get back into the closet, and to be proud of yourself instead. But I like Greta’s better. I’m totally going to steal that.
“Underlings”? Don’t you mean “ideologues”, which is what he said. Saying he’s looking for underlings sounds like he’s looking to anger his employees.
Ross Balmer @19
Underling sounds so much nicer than inferiors or lessers. Boghossian would probably prefer the term lumpen proliteriat but that’s too left-wing for him.
I don’t even know who this Boghassian guy is and I just don’t care.
Likewise, I don’t know who ‘Gretta’ is and I’m not sure I’d want to know her.
It means being proud of living in a homophobic, biphobic, transphobic society — a society that commonly treats us with contempt at best and violent hatred at worst — and still getting on with our lives. It means being proud of flourishing, in a society that commonly thinks we’re broken. It means being proud of being happy, in a society that commonly thinks we should be miserable. It means being proud of being good and compassionate, in a society that commonly thinks we’re wicked. It means being proud of fighting for our rights and the rights of others like us, in a society that commonly thinks we should lie down and let ourselves get walked on — or that thinks we should be grateful for crumbs and not ask for more. It means being proud of retaining our dignity, in a society that commonly treats us as laughing-stocks. It means being proud of loving our sexuality and our bodies, in a society that commonly thinks our sexuality and our bodies are disgusting. It means being proud of staying alive, in a society that commonly beats us down and wants us dead.
It might surprise Gretta to know that as a gay person this isn’t my take on things at all.
I live in Canada, not America, so perhaps my society”‘commonly” doesn’t think or treat gays the way she says they do. She completely essentialises American society in a way that distorts the reality.
If you think about it hat quote is actually quite outrageous. Is Gretta hunkered down in a concrete bunker some where? If she’s of the opinion that the surrounding society “commonly” wants us dead, then she’s way off the mark because that is just NOT true
America is a GOOD place. America, despite its faults and bo-bos is the very place where Gays are perhaps respected the most.
The America Gretta portrays in that quote went the way of the Do-Do years ago. Her statement is archaic, as though she lives in the past.
That said, despite the plethora of improvements over the years, we still shouldn’t let our guard down. There will be renewed threats against us, but they’ll probably emerge from newer communities that have yet to adjust to or even grasp the idea of gay rights.
America is always a work in progress.
Decker, I’m glad you’re fortunate enough not to live in one of the many countries in the world where being LGBT is illegal and routinely punished by imprisonment or execution. And I’m glad that you’re fortunate enough to live and move in circles where being LGBT isn’t made into a problem for you by the bigotry of others. And I’m extremely happy that as of recent years this is increasingly true of some countries. But your corner of Canada plus significant corners of many countries fall a long long way short of being the world, and sadly – tragically – your experience isn’t everybody’s.
Incidentally, who is this “Gretta” person to whom you refer?
@ opposable
I never claimed America was perfect…far from it. But to read that passage is to get the impression America is some sort of dystopian nightmare for Gays, and that’s just not the case. Her description of ‘common’ American society reminds me of those screeds survivalists write about the U.S.when attempting to justify living in a cave in Montana with endless rounds of ammo and two centuries worth of dehydrated chicken stock.
I know that western societies still have a lot of work to do when it comes to fully accepting and embracing queers, but the real situation is far, far from the nightmare described in that quote.
The dismissive use of “just” in the #justbornthatway hashtag, when the best hashtag doesn’t waste characters, is also a shitty passing jab. I really see reasons not to like this guy.
Decker – another thing about your comment @ 21 – you really don’t need to be pissy about my mentioning someone by a first name. All you had to do to answer your own question whoisthisgreta was look at the link.
Marcus, please don’t be so light and easy about that. We have not put that shit behind us. It’s still legal to be fired for being queer all over the damned place. You and the rest of straight society don’t have great big laurels to rest on. I know you’re on the side of right and good, but that was glib and obnoxious.
Alright, her name is Gretta Christina and she lives in S.F. has written numerous works on various topics and has posted a photo of herself on line..all of which is much more than I’ve ever done, I suppose.
And you know, I’m jealous. I’d always dreamed of moving to America and, like her, being an American citizen, but could never quite swing it.
When you’re on the outside looking in, America is quite the temptation.
Decker, you’re a horse’s ass. Try taking off your Decker’s Experiences Are Reflective Of How It Is For Most Gays blinders. Queer folks aren’t making shit up to annoy you. They really do experience what they say they experience. Don’t be an Uncle Mary.
Her name is Greta, spelled with one T.
Decker, yes, I know who she is, you don’t need to tell me. Also she blogs on this network, so we’re colleagues. That’s another reason it’s just not all that annoying of me to have cited her by first name only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojnv3fegkfM — it sure sounds like a lot of work to me.
He’s a special kind of bigot isn’t he? It just takes his bigotry one step over to pretending that it is about his “superior intellect”. It is the same sneering shitty bigotry in a cheap mask.
Marcus @ 12:
This is not true. Consider Arizona. Marriage equality is now a thing in Arizona (YAY!) but you can still be fired for being gay in Arizona because sexuality is NOT a federally protected class. In fact, Arizona is one of those fun little fucked up “right to work” states which really means “right to fire for any damn reason that’s not federally protected” (and even then, in a right to work (fire) state, it’s REALLY hard to prove that you’ve been fired because of your gender or race or whatever).
Arizona is changing a lot, particularly in Phoenix and Tucson and Tempe and a few other places (not so much Sun City lol), but there are still plenty of small backwards towns and even backwards managers in the bigger cities like Phoenix and Tucson who are not going to be favorable to gay people. I can easily see a couple getting married in Arizona and then someone getting fired shortly thereafter for made-up bullshit reasons.
Indeed, I actually know someone in Phoenix who was fired recently and he is fairly certain it was because he was gay (he was also a drag queen by night and he thinks that was the possibly the reason after his boss found out). I also know of two gay-bashing incidents within the last couple of years, one of which was in the very gay friendly central Phoenix Melrose District neighborhood where I lived. So, no, those days where gay people get fired for being gay are NOT over.
And we haven’t even begun talking about trans folks…
@Decker
But… you live in Canada, not America. You made a point of saying so yourself –
– so why would you consider your opinion of America to be more accurate than that of someone who actually does live there? Where do you get your opinion of America from? Are you aware that the part of America that borders your country is considered to be far more liberal and enlightened than the southern parts? You cannot look at the best elements of the north and assume that it’s representative of the whole country.
Bullshit. When politicians in the UK, where I live, make a point of blaming gay people for the weather (which actually has happened, assuming my memory is playing fair) they get publicly lambasted from all sides. In America, they get elected to the senate.
Now, I don’t think that the UK is the best country in the world for its treatment of gay people, but claiming that the US is the place where they’re most respected is ludicrous.
No offence meant to those of you who do live there and love it, but… really? From my perspective, the idea of moving to America is a nightmare.
Decker, here are some links I found just by using Google. Wasn’t hard to find examples of gay bashing and the like:
From 2010, and in a gay-friendly part of Ottawa:
And what about this?
I also found this, from Canada’s past.
1986!! That wasn’t that long ago.
I could go on but I won’t because you’re perfectly capable of stepping outside of your self-centered little bubble. Do some research. Learn about your own country. And stop speaking about the subject of how LGBT people are treated in the USA (even you admit you don’t know much about the subject, and yet you continue to lecture us about it!).
The USA is a huge country. So is Canada, btw. You live in one small little part of Canada, and you’re only one person. Your experiences should not be assumed to be the experiences of everyone else in your country.
I suppose it’s not at all surprising that when things DO start to get better for an oppressed class of people, that certain people within that class will lose perspective. They will take advantage of what people have fought for them in the past, and also ignore the continued plight of others who haven’t been so privileged, even in the year 2014 where things *are* getting better in a lot of aspects of the USA (and Canada). But some people, including you, seem to forget that there is still a LOT more work to be done. (And not just in our respective countries.)
I think the first step for Bogus-sian disambiguation would involve removing his cranium from his sphincter.
Dear Peter, please do be sure to let me know if you want to disambiguate that phrase for you. Ta.